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Exactly zero of the people I know who are into Musk are into him because of these reasons. Granted, this is a very very very tiny corner of Musk's fans but the

Exactly zero of the people I know who are into Musk are into him because of these reasons. Granted, this is a very very very tiny corner of Musk's fans but the people I know are into him because he is "badass" and "sticks it to the man" and things like this. I think that Musk has an evolved version of Jobs' reality distortion field. The cult of personality is more important than the actual output and he is definitionally "cool" to his followers.

eatonphil 5y ago
Who becomes a follower of someone they don't think is cool? People who follow ironically?
- samhw 5y ago
  In my experience, people who worship money, and the bitch goddess 'Success'.
- nemo 5y ago
  He has to keep acting out to maintain the image of coolness to his followers and he appears to be hooked on the likes. It's a cycle that escalates which is why he's gone off the deep end at this point imo.
  - boringg 5y ago
    Agreed - Twitter self-validation loop. Seems like a lot of older guys are getting caught up in it right now - maybe older brains are more susceptible?
- code_runner 5y ago
  a lot of this depends on the definition that we have of "follower" and "cool" but I don't disagree.
- figassis 5y ago
  Competitors? Journalists?
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    I didn't mean Twitter follower; when GP said "followers" I took it to mean as in follower<>leader relationship.
School-Cotton 5y ago
Anecdotally I definitely know people who are into Musk purely because of the SpaceX/Mars colonization stuff.
panick21_ 5y ago
That literally the exact opposite of people I know. Pretty much everybody I know loves SpaceX and the technology and doesn't give a shit about US politics or the SEC or whatever other crap people in the US get worked up about.
- nerdjon 5y ago
  To add to this, almost every conversation I have (I am in the US so that may be part of it) includes "Elon is cringe but..." and likely followed by SpaceX is doing fantastic work.
  - boringg 5y ago
    I mean the fact is he is this centuries entrepreneur as Schumpeter defines it. If you compare what he has done versus the rest of his class he's mopped the floor. So in terms of accomplishments he is in his own realm. I agree I do have concerns that things may be changing and his original goals of humanitarian goals (EVs, solar, storage, space travel) are now getting caught up with straight power plays (twitter). I wonder if he has been caught by the twitter validation loop.
  - jackosdev 5y ago
    He's an interesting guy who seems straight out of a science fiction show. Can't nerds like me just think it's kind of cool that someone is actively trying to expand humanity to multiple planets? My read is people find reasons to hate him due to ego, they see someone running like 6+ successful companies when their lives aren't going so well, and go looking for all the moralistic things he must be doing wrong.
    - nerdjon 5y ago
      I don't think there is anything wrong with that, I will be the first to give him a lot of credit for the companies he has started. Especially Space and Tesla. There is no doubt that both of those have pushed forward both industries in series ways. I don't think it is all just ego or jealousy. He has made some questionable comments in the past. He keeps going on that this particular purchase is about free speech. He consciously has chosen to be very public with some of his more questionable opinions (especially regarding Covid) on his Twitter. Yes I am very glad that he has started SpaceX and Tesla. I despise the criticisms of billionaires "Wasting" their money on Space. But that does not absolve him of criticisms of him personally outside of those companies.
mepiethree 5y ago
Do you know people who work or have worked for him? I work in the clean tech industry and know several people who work(ed) for solar city or Tesla. Musk is, I hear, a great recruiter, but then overworks his talent and eventually they burn out.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  For better or worse, sounds like the average startup life except perhaps with a better mission
  - boringg 5y ago
    Thats part of the sell. Tesla originally gave really low comp packages and had super long hard hours for employees under the mission status and working for Elon. For a long time it really looked like a bad deal but in the end it paid out well for employees who held onto their options, the long hour were already spent. As for the mission - seems mostly legit though I don't think Elon is motivated by climate change otherwise he wouldn't be using Natural Gas for fueling his rockets more for ability to create self sustaining energy off planet.
- jakey_bakey 5y ago
  In the Big 4 I worked with a guy who was once a project manager at Tesla. The guy wasn't super talented, but mentioned that it would ruin your week if Elon came over to you because he had a bad habit of micromanaging people. And yeah, he agreed that Elon isn't necessarily super smart but is brilliant at finding brilliant people and convincing them to work themselves half to death. Which, incidentally, is basically the main job of a startup CEO so props to him for that.
sidlls 5y ago
There is a sizeable contingent who are into him because they are terribly ignorant of the history of our efforts in space and the relationship between NASA and SpaceX, and think he has stuck it to the crusty old government man and "disrupted" the entire endeavor.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway894345 5y ago
I'm very reluctant to call myself "a Musk fan" (and I've never met anyone like you describe, though no doubt they're out there somewhere), but I have to admit that the things he's done are remarkable: building several large companies which are not only commercially successful but advance the public interest with much more ambition than any other companies I've seen in my lifetime. Previously, accomplishments like those of SpaceX were only feasible in a Cold War context. I also think he has good political instincts (pushing back against regressive leftism without indulging in unsavory elements of the right), and I can even appreciate the occasional shitpost; however, I think he often goes too far and veers into immaturity. But expecting someone to accomplish what he has while also having perfect social grace is unrealistic; if his critics really want to put him in his place, they should do so by example--do something to significantly advance the public interest without social foibles.
jhugo 5y ago
> The cult of personality is more important than the actual output There is a quite interesting inverse effect too, though. Musk's actual output is undeniably pretty impressive (I challenge you to watch a rocket land on a drone ship and tell me otherwise!), yet there is a veritable army of people online waiting to suggest in the comments on stories like this that he's just all about memes and personality. Maybe two opposing reality distortion fields with Musk suspended somewhere in the middle?
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Jobs' output was impressive too! The reality distortion field enables Musk to hire extremely effectively. I know some really really strong engineers who chose SpaceX because Musk is there, despite having higher paying offers elsewhere. A big challenge is that Twitter's problems aren't engineering problems. They are sociology problems. Musk has demonstrated that he can hire engineers to solve engineering problems. How well will that translate into sociology problems?
  - jhugo 5y ago
    > Musk has demonstrated that he can hire engineers to solve engineering problems. How well will that translate into sociology problems? I can't wait to see! Either he improves Twitter, which is great because it's in really bad shape, or he destroys it, which is great because something else can fill the void.
gonzo41 5y ago
It's just crazy that people fawn over him this much. He's the richest guy on earth, he doesn't stick it to the man, he is the man. Good luck to twitter I guess.

eatonphil 5y ago

Who becomes a follower of someone they don't think is cool? People who follow ironically?

samhw 5y ago
In my experience, people who worship money, and the bitch goddess 'Success'.
nemo 5y ago
He has to keep acting out to maintain the image of coolness to his followers and he appears to be hooked on the likes. It's a cycle that escalates which is why he's gone off the deep end at this point imo.
- boringg 5y ago
  Agreed - Twitter self-validation loop. Seems like a lot of older guys are getting caught up in it right now - maybe older brains are more susceptible?
code_runner 5y ago
a lot of this depends on the definition that we have of "follower" and "cool" but I don't disagree.
figassis 5y ago
Competitors? Journalists?
- eatonphil 5y ago
  I didn't mean Twitter follower; when GP said "followers" I took it to mean as in follower<>leader relationship.

School-Cotton 5y ago

Anecdotally I definitely know people who are into Musk purely because of the SpaceX/Mars colonization stuff.

panick21_ 5y ago

That literally the exact opposite of people I know. Pretty much everybody I know loves SpaceX and the technology and doesn't give a shit about US politics or the SEC or whatever other crap people in the US get worked up about.

nerdjon 5y ago
To add to this, almost every conversation I have (I am in the US so that may be part of it) includes "Elon is cringe but..." and likely followed by SpaceX is doing fantastic work.
- boringg 5y ago
  I mean the fact is he is this centuries entrepreneur as Schumpeter defines it. If you compare what he has done versus the rest of his class he's mopped the floor. So in terms of accomplishments he is in his own realm. I agree I do have concerns that things may be changing and his original goals of humanitarian goals (EVs, solar, storage, space travel) are now getting caught up with straight power plays (twitter). I wonder if he has been caught by the twitter validation loop.
- jackosdev 5y ago
  He's an interesting guy who seems straight out of a science fiction show. Can't nerds like me just think it's kind of cool that someone is actively trying to expand humanity to multiple planets? My read is people find reasons to hate him due to ego, they see someone running like 6+ successful companies when their lives aren't going so well, and go looking for all the moralistic things he must be doing wrong.
  - nerdjon 5y ago
    I don't think there is anything wrong with that, I will be the first to give him a lot of credit for the companies he has started. Especially Space and Tesla. There is no doubt that both of those have pushed forward both industries in series ways. I don't think it is all just ego or jealousy. He has made some questionable comments in the past. He keeps going on that this particular purchase is about free speech. He consciously has chosen to be very public with some of his more questionable opinions (especially regarding Covid) on his Twitter. Yes I am very glad that he has started SpaceX and Tesla. I despise the criticisms of billionaires "Wasting" their money on Space. But that does not absolve him of criticisms of him personally outside of those companies.

mepiethree 5y ago

Do you know people who work or have worked for him? I work in the clean tech industry and know several people who work(ed) for solar city or Tesla. Musk is, I hear, a great recruiter, but then overworks his talent and eventually they burn out.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
For better or worse, sounds like the average startup life except perhaps with a better mission
- boringg 5y ago
  Thats part of the sell. Tesla originally gave really low comp packages and had super long hard hours for employees under the mission status and working for Elon. For a long time it really looked like a bad deal but in the end it paid out well for employees who held onto their options, the long hour were already spent. As for the mission - seems mostly legit though I don't think Elon is motivated by climate change otherwise he wouldn't be using Natural Gas for fueling his rockets more for ability to create self sustaining energy off planet.
jakey_bakey 5y ago
In the Big 4 I worked with a guy who was once a project manager at Tesla. The guy wasn't super talented, but mentioned that it would ruin your week if Elon came over to you because he had a bad habit of micromanaging people. And yeah, he agreed that Elon isn't necessarily super smart but is brilliant at finding brilliant people and convincing them to work themselves half to death. Which, incidentally, is basically the main job of a startup CEO so props to him for that.

sidlls 5y ago

There is a sizeable contingent who are into him because they are terribly ignorant of the history of our efforts in space and the relationship between NASA and SpaceX, and think he has stuck it to the crusty old government man and "disrupted" the entire endeavor.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway894345 5y ago

I'm very reluctant to call myself "a Musk fan" (and I've never met anyone like you describe, though no doubt they're out there somewhere), but I have to admit that the things he's done are remarkable: building several large companies which are not only commercially successful but advance the public interest with much more ambition than any other companies I've seen in my lifetime. Previously, accomplishments like those of SpaceX were only feasible in a Cold War context. I also think he has good political instincts (pushing back against regressive leftism without indulging in unsavory elements of the right), and I can even appreciate the occasional shitpost; however, I think he often goes too far and veers into immaturity. But expecting someone to accomplish what he has while also having perfect social grace is unrealistic; if his critics really want to put him in his place, they should do so by example--do something to significantly advance the public interest without social foibles.

jhugo 5y ago

> The cult of personality is more important than the actual output There is a quite interesting inverse effect too, though. Musk's actual output is undeniably pretty impressive (I challenge you to watch a rocket land on a drone ship and tell me otherwise!), yet there is a veritable army of people online waiting to suggest in the comments on stories like this that he's just all about memes and personality. Maybe two opposing reality distortion fields with Musk suspended somewhere in the middle?

UncleMeat 5y ago
Jobs' output was impressive too! The reality distortion field enables Musk to hire extremely effectively. I know some really really strong engineers who chose SpaceX because Musk is there, despite having higher paying offers elsewhere. A big challenge is that Twitter's problems aren't engineering problems. They are sociology problems. Musk has demonstrated that he can hire engineers to solve engineering problems. How well will that translate into sociology problems?
- jhugo 5y ago
  > Musk has demonstrated that he can hire engineers to solve engineering problems. How well will that translate into sociology problems? I can't wait to see! Either he improves Twitter, which is great because it's in really bad shape, or he destroys it, which is great because something else can fill the void.

gonzo41 5y ago

It's just crazy that people fawn over him this much. He's the richest guy on earth, he doesn't stick it to the man, he is the man. Good luck to twitter I guess.